Over the past few years, bashing China for its policy and actions in the South China Sea has become quite common in the US foreign policy community. More recently, the criticism has become ever more strident and dangerous.

A team of legal experts from the Chinese Society of International Law has just published a major critique of the PCA arbitral award in the case of Philippines v. China on their South China Sea dispute in the Chinese Journal of International Law.

Most analysts agree that China and the US are locked in a seminal long-term struggle for dominance in Asia. A new and more dangerous phase in their troubled relationship may be beginning and one window on this dynamic is their behavior in the South China Sea.

Kim Jung-un crossed the 38th Parallel line southward for the historic third inter-Korean summit on April 27, 2018. It was a 12 hour-long event that included a summit talk, a break, a stroll, the monumental event of planting a tree, and a banquet.

New technologies can bring military applications to new heights. The X-41 Common Aero Vehicle Falcon program is a glimpse of the future. The X-41 operates like a missile that can fly at high altitude and carry nuclear and non-nuclear warheads.

The US and China have apparently reached a tacit agreement to disagree and to maintain a leaky status quo, a “new normal.” Not coincidentally, relations on this issue between the ASEAN claimants and between ASEAN and China are more or less at the same place.

Pakistan Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi recently met with US Vice President Mike Pence. One of the challenges which the US is facing is that despite taking tough measures on Pakistan lately, there has been no visible change in Islamabad’s approach towards terror groups.

Taiwan’s interests and role in the South China Sea disputes have essentially been officially ignored. With the election of US President Donald Trump and appointment of John Bolton as National Security Advisor, its influence and involvement may increase substantially.

Kim Jong-un’s visit was very strategically calculated. It had two purposes. The first was to bring China-North Korea relations back on track. The second was to seek China’s insurance and confirm China’s patron-state status.